After a childhood spent skiing, playing football, baseball and surfing, I found my passion when I first became friends with one of the top BMX riders in the Western U.S.  After that introduction, I spent several years racing downhill MTB reaching the elite national circuit, but suffered a terrible injury at the 1996 U.S. Championships.  Cycling then took a backseat to school and recovery over the next year and a half before  an opportunity to move to Europe delayed it one more year.  It was during my recovery from my injury where I began to swim, run and study the human body from a performance and energy perspective.  In the summer of 2000, cycling returned to the center of my life, but I had transitioned to a cross country MTB and road cycling racer and competed all over Europe until 2005.

While in Europe, I was coached for the first time and found myself studying so much to educate myself in order to fully understand the physical underpinnings of my coach’s plans, that I became interested in coaching others.  In late 2003, I began to work with some MTB racers who I had raced and through word of mouth by the end of 2004, I had several athletes working with me, pushing me to help them reach their goals.  With a USA Cycling certification and several courses in nutrition, human physiology and many, many sports science seminars, I have become well versed in the foundations that are required to build a strong endurance engine.

I began my swim focus soon after as I began my own competitive interest in triathlon, and began what has been an 8 year journey of trying to learn a sport that is far more intuitive than any other I have experienced.  I have often joked, that I wish my parents would have put me on the swim team at age 3 instead of skis!  In my quest to become knowledgeable about swimming, I have worked with many great swimmers and coaches, from Amy Marsh (multiple IRONMAN champion), Karlyn Pipes-Nielson (many time world record holder), the Univ of Texas Masters program, Swim For Tri in London and others.  Both my knowledge and ability have improved tremendously, with the knowledge side outpacing the ability side by some stretch.